In the present disclosure, where a document, an act and/or an item of knowledge is referred to and/or discussed, then such reference and/or discussion is not an admission that the document, the act and/or the item of knowledge and/or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge and/or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; and/or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned with. Further, nothing is disclaimed.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technology which has many uses. One of such uses is human brain imaging for research purposes or medical purposes. Functional MRI (FMRI) is a type of MRI which measures brain activity based on detecting changes in blood oxygen content or blood flow, where the changes result from neural activity of the brain.
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder which afflicts from about 0.5% to about 1% of US adults. Consequently, earlier confirmed schizophrenia diagnosis can lead to fewer symptoms, greater chance for treatment response, or lower medical costs, especially cumulatively. However, confirmation of such diagnosis through traditional subjective methods, including responsiveness to antipsychotic medication and follow-up evaluation, can be costly and time-consuming, such as for several months. Furthermore, there is no established objective method that has been shown to delineate schizophrenia and other similar diseases. Additionally, there is no established objective method to determine which schizophrenia patients will convert to an advanced stage of psychosis when first evaluated by a healthcare provider, such as a psychiatrist. As a result, the healthcare provider does not know which of the schizophrenia patients will convert to a more advanced state of psychosis, or how well a targeted treatment is working. As shown in FIG. 1, a cycle of care for a schizophrenia patient with suspected psychosis entails a battery of tests, evaluations, and follow-ups, as well as long term care. Accordingly, there is no established objective method to provide a first-line evaluation to determine which schizophrenia patients are at greater risk of converting to a more advanced state of psychosis or schizophrenia.
Alzheimer's disease has been linked to entorhinal cortex dysfunction. To research or diagnose how Alzheimer's disease affects the entorhinal cortex, a high resolution, metabolism sensitive, and reliable imaging variant is desired. Cerebral blood volume (CBV) is one such variant. However, CBV often relies on manual labeling of relevant regions of interest (ROI), which cannot distinguish various entorhinal cortex areas without reliable anatomical landmarks.